The paper describes a systematic method for the tailoring of dispersion properties of slab-based photonic crystal waveguides. The method is based on the topology optimization method which consists in repeated finite element frequency domain analyzes, analytical sensitivity analyzes and gradient based design updates. The goal of the optimization process is to come up with slow light, zero group velocity dispersion photonic waveguides or photonic waveguides with tailored dispersion properties for dispersion compensation purposes. Two examples concerning reproduction of a specific dispersion curve and design of a wide bandwidth, constant low group velocity waveguide demonstrate the efficiency of the method.